Introduction to Polisomatics
think politics and somatics; I made it up but it works!
Do you ever look at a photo that makes your body time travel?
This is one of them for me. I came across it today and the memory of the moment flooded back, stimulating all my senses:
the outside temperature - unseasonably warm for that time of year and feeling a little humid on the skin;
the place - a lakeside deck in Gatineau Park;
the sounds - water and birds and a gentle breeze;
the smells - warm air and inland lake (yes, those are smells)
The context: May 2, 2022
I woke up that morning feeling completely out of sorts; in full body pain and feeling emotionally frozen and exhausted.
There was nothing that could explain the way my body felt - no unusual physical exertion the day before, no hangover, no seasonal allergies, nothing.
I was about to complete an advanced trauma-informed coach training certification, experiential learning - a classroom experience whose welcome side benefit is self-healing.
I knew my body was trying to tell me something; I just couldn’t figure out what.
So I tabled my plans for work that day and gave myself permission to rest, nurture my body, drink water, and listen.
Towards the end of the day, my partner suggested a drive into Gatineau park - it had become part of our daily medicine during the pandemic and is a ritual that endures today.
Because I am a news and political junkie, and lean towards the OCD end of the spectrum, I turned on the news at the top of the hour on the car radio.
Something I heard - a politician I abhor spouting off on something - brought it all back to me.
The body remembers.
While I hadn’t been conscious of the date before then, I realized it was the 10th anniversary of an election day that turned out to be very traumatic.
As an intuitive, I knew from the day I landed in my hometown riding for Canada’s 41st federal campaign, I knew we were going to lose.
It was heavy in the air.
And that was indeed what happened 36 days later.
I shoved my intuition into my back pocket and worked the campaign as doggedly and as energetically as any other, putting on a brave and optimistic face for the volunteers, and trying unsuccessfully to convince the campaign manager that maybe we could try doing something differently this time.
My intuition reappeared every evening when I returned to my billet for a debrief phone call with my partner back home; more often than not, I fell asleep crying.
I knew my dear friend and mentor was going to lose his seat. It was a senseless rejection of the highest order - he was a compassionate human being whose only ambition in running for political office was to create a world where everyone has access to the necessities of life - food, shelter, health care, community.
I share his ambition, but it was more personal than that for me; I felt it as a rejection of me as a human being, by my hometown, my family who wouldn’t or couldn’t see me for who I am, let alone welcome or support me.
This experience wasn’t new, and it was largely the reason that I moved to another city in the first place - I rarely felt welcome or seen in my hometown. There are a lot of reasons for that that I plan to write about separately, but for now, let’s examine what happened ten years later on that drive to the lakeside where this photo was taken.
That morning, I woke up experiencing Polisomatics: It’s what happens when the body remembers a traumatic political event before your head understands what’s going on.
Because I made space for my body to speak to me in its own time, I was able to recall the experience and shed another layer of grief around it.
That in a nutshell was why I was taking the certification training - I experienced profound healing and transformation with an advanced trauma-informed somatic coach, and I wanted to be able to share what I’d learned about grief and healing with others.
Here’s the thing about living in a body: You’re never really done with the learning, never really done with the healing - that’s an unrealistic and capitalist expectation.
That’s not how grief and healing work.
The unavoidable truth about living in these bodies is that all life ends. Love and grief are inseparable from each other.
But with care, gentle practice and titration, we can ever so slowly evolve into higher levels, into deeper love for ourselves and increased capacity to offer that love to the world in a sustainable way.
And I’m here for more of that.